Representatives from the National Research Council (NRC) and The Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) present two innovative initiatives that address some of the current and future needs of museums and cultural institutions. CHIN undertook these pilot initiatives both to further advance its products and to encourage capacity building among its member institutions. The first initiative is the use of Nefertiti, software that classifies and retrieves three-dimensional images and models from databases. Unique to Nefertiti is its content-based algorithms which permit users to search by scale, shape, and/or color. The second initiative is a pilot project in collaboration with the McCord Museum and the Canadian Space Agency using the NRC's Demotride software. Demotride brings artefacts, objects and scenes vividly to life in three dimensions (3D); this project allows participative interaction with objects and artefacts, including the ability to rotate, zoom and manipulate them for highly-detailed examination.